If you haven’t done these 7 things by 40, you’re a late bloomer – VegOut

I finally learned how to poach an egg properly. This felt like a bigger accomplishment than it should have, considering my friends were buying second homes while I was googling “vinegar or no vinegar?” But that’s the thing about arbitrary life milestones—they hit different when you’re still figuring out basics that everyone else apparently mastered at twenty-seven.

The internet loves telling us what we should accomplish by certain ages. By thirty: own property. By thirty-five: find your calling. By forty: have it all figured out. Meanwhile, some of us are over here just discovering we actually hate hiking despite doing it for fifteen years to seem outdoorsy. So let’s talk about what it really means to be “behind”—and why late bloomers might actually be onto something.

1. Found a career you don’t fantasize about leaving

By forty, conventional wisdom says you should be established in your field, maybe even “crushing it.” Instead, you’re still opening job alerts, wondering if it’s too late to become a therapist, architect, or that person who names nail polish colors. Your LinkedIn profile reads like a choose-your-own-adventure novel that never quite chose.

The truth about career satisfaction is that most people are winging it longer than they admit. Your friends with director titles? Half are miserable. That college roommate who “followed their passion”? They’re teaching yoga after burning out from following their passion. Being forty without a clear career path isn’t failure—it’s honesty about how work actually works. Some of us need four decades to figure out what we don’t want to do. That’s data, not delay.

2. Stopped caring what your parents think

Sure, you moved out decades ago, but you’re still explaining your life choices like you’re defending a dissertation. Every decision gets filtered through the parent lens: will they approve, understand, or do that thing where they say “interesting” in a way that means “disappointing”?

The funny thing about parental approval is that it’s often about their anxieties, not your choices. By forty, theoretically, you should have internalized this. Instead, you’re still prefacing conversations with “don’t freak out, but…” The liberation of truly not caring what they think—not pretend not caring, but actual indifference—might come at forty-five. Or sixty. Or during a random Tuesday phone call when you realize you’re the adult now.

3. Figured out your relationship with money

Everyone else seems to have spreadsheets, investment portfolios, and opinions about cryptocurrency. You have a checking account, a savings account you occasionally remember exists, and a vague sense that you should understand compound interest by now. Retirement planning feels like science fiction when you’re still recovering from your thirties.

Financial literacy isn’t actually about knowing everything—it’s about knowing enough for your life. Maybe you’ll never care about the stock market. Maybe your retirement plan is “work until death” or “hope for the best.” The pressure to have money figured out by forty assumes we all started at the same place. Some of us are still catching up from decisions we made at twenty-two with a brain that wouldn’t fully develop for three more years.

4. Made peace with your body

By forty, you’re supposed to have achieved either peak fitness or body acceptance. Instead, you’re stuck in the middle ground—downloading fitness apps you’ll never open while eating chips in workout clothes. You’ve tried every approach: intuitive eating (ate intuitively, gained weight), strict routines (lasted six days), and “lifestyle changes” (which are just diets with better PR).

The body image journey isn’t linear, despite what wellness influencers suggest. Some people find peace with their bodies at twenty-five, others at seventy, and some never quite get there. Being forty and still fighting the same battles with the mirror doesn’t mean you’ve failed. It means you’re human in a culture that profits from body dissatisfaction. Maybe peace isn’t the goal. Maybe just calling a truce is enough.

5. Learned how to maintain friendships

Remember when friendships just happened? Now they require Google calendar coordination, three-week advance notice, and someone inevitably canceling because their kid has a thing. You’re supposed to have a solid friend group by forty—your people, your tribe, your whatever. Instead, you’re realizing you haven’t talked to your “best friend” in six months.

Adult friendship maintenance is basically a part-time job nobody prepared us for. The friends who stuck around are random—not the ones you expected, but the ones who also text at weird hours and don’t judge your life choices. Some late bloomers are just now learning that friendship requires effort, intention, and accepting that everyone’s busy. It’s not that you’re bad at friendship; you’re just realizing it’s harder than movies suggested.

6. Developed an actual skincare routine

By forty, you should be applying serums in the correct order, understanding retinol, and having opinions about peptides. Instead, you’re still using the same drugstore moisturizer from 2009 and occasionally remembering sunscreen exists. Your medicine cabinet is a graveyard of products you bought after midnight Instagram scrolling.

The skincare industrial complex wants us to believe forty-year-old skin requires military-level strategy. But some of us are just discovering that washing our face before bed makes a difference. Being a skincare late bloomer means accepting that you’ll never be the person with twelve steps. You’ll be the person who celebrates remembering to remove makeup. And honestly? Your skin probably can’t tell the difference.

7. Stopped apologizing for who you are

This is the big one. By forty, you’re supposed to own your choices, your personality, your whole deal. No more “sorry for rambling” or “this might be stupid but” or explaining why you’re the way you are. Just existing, unapologetically, like those people who send food back at restaurants without having an existential crisis.

But self-acceptance isn’t a switch that flips at forty. Some of us are still apologizing for taking up space, still explaining our personalities like they’re bugs, not features. The late bloomer’s journey to not apologizing might take another decade. Or it might happen tomorrow when you finally get tired of performing palatability for people who aren’t paying attention anyway.

Final thoughts

Here’s what I’ve learned about being a late bloomer: everyone’s late to something. The friend with the perfect marriage started therapy at forty-two. The successful entrepreneur just learned to swim. The put-together parent still can’t parallel park. We’re all behind on different chapters, comparing our rough drafts to everyone else’s published editions.

The phrase “late bloomer” implies there’s a correct blooming schedule, like we’re all flowers in the same garden with the same sun. But maybe some of us are houseplants, needing different conditions to thrive. Maybe some of us are those corpse flowers that bloom once a decade and smell terrible but are somehow magnificent.

Being forty-plus and still figuring things out isn’t failure—it’s proof that growth doesn’t have a deadline. We’re not late; we’re just on a different schedule. And honestly? The view from here, surrounded by fellow late bloomers all pretending less and laughing more, is pretty good. Even if we still can’t poach an egg properly. (Turns out it’s vinegar. Definitely vinegar.)